Kohler, SDMO announce 'transformational' engine range launch

Tuesday, 18 October 2016 11:02

The Kohler-SDMO 'K-series' generator sets are primed to hit the market in 2017 (Source: Kohler-SDMO)New breed diesel engines and generator sets will enter the global market — including Africa — next year under a new Kohler Power Group and SDMO Industries brand umbrella, both companies have revealed

At an event in Strasbourg attended by African Review, sister publication Technical Review Middle East and other trade press, global power solutions provider Kohler unveiled a new partnership with SDMO that will result in Kohler-SDMO branded 'K-series' generator sets launching into the global marketplace in 2017.

The K135 and K175 'KD' range of generator sets include nodes between 800KVA and 4200KVA in V12, V16 and V20 diesel engine variants.

Power generation spans 700KW to 3.6MW (50Hz) and 900KW to 4.2MW (60Hz) as part of a ‘global engineering effort’, with a standalone website designed to support the launch.

The range will begin with configurations including the 2,800kVA up to 2,500KWe (60Hz) unit, with the remainder of the generator specs appearing in the next 12 months.

The new 'G-Drive' spec engines, co-developed in association with Austrian construction machine manufacturer Liebherr at its factories in Bulle, Switzerland and Colmar SAS, France, are exclusive to Kohler "for an extended period time", Kohler Group president – power Thomas Cromwell told a press conference.

“This is the most exciting announcement as a transformation for our business,” he added.

“Africa is a very strong market for us and SDMO does extremely well. The other unique thing about Africa is a lot of those units run a number of hours per year, so it gets a little bit closer to a prime market where you're seeing a lot of hours and the product ranges are engines that will handle extended run hours very well, so we feel this will be a very good product for Africa.”

SDMO Industries general manager Hervé Prigent said, “Mainly for Africa, we are going to run fuel optimised engines; we are going to play to the advantage of the fuel consumption, which is massive. If the unit is running more than 500 hours, the total payback for the customer will be super green. We've been placing common rail engines into Africa for a long time.”